Specimens and schools: 9 to 5 at the museum

Jack Ashby, learning and access manager at the Grant Museum of Zoology

Animal skeletons not optional: Jack at his desk (Image: Dave Stock)

I was the kind of kid that brought home skulls I'd found in the woods, dissected owl pellets on the kitchen table and looked at fungal spores under the microscope. Things haven't really changed, except Monday to Friday I'm paid to be interested in such things, and in my free time I do it for fun. I work at the Grant Museum of Zoology - the largely Victorian collection of animal specimens that were put together to teach zoology at University College London, and are now a public museum.

Some might say that this makes me a zoologist, and indeed that's what my degree was in. However, when I describe myself as a zoologist I always feel the need to go on to explain that I'm not an academic zoologist - I'm not employed to carry out my own research or to teach undergraduates.

Rather, I am the museum's Learning and Access Manager. We are a small team and my remit is fairly broad. I'm responsible for anyone who uses the museum's specimens and spaces. That includes the general public, lecturers, schools, researchers, artists and people at our events.

The thing about professional zoologists is that nearly every one I know has always been zoologist at heart, and I am no exception. Like many specialisms, people who do it, do it out of love. Out-of-hours they do the same thing, only as a hobby. And in fact I'm writing from Broome, Western Australia where I'm en route to join a team of ecologists who are performing a survey of an Australian wildlife conservancy sanctuary, trapping small mammals, lizards, snakes and frogs. This is how I spend my holidays, and it makes me better at my job.

My geeky youth was concluded at the University of Cambridge, where I studied natural sciences and specialised in zoology. My first job was at the science centre At-Bristol presenting workshops to schools and families, and interpreting the animals and interactive exhibits we had.

After a year I took up the post at UCL where I've been for the last seven years. I was the first person in the role, tasked with making the museum more accessible to non-university audiences, as well as coordinating the use of the collection by academics wanting to research or teach with the specimens.

On an "average" day, I'll be programming public events - coming up with ideas and contacting experts who can talk about them - or managing our schools programme. Other days I'll be working with lecturers to develop classes for their students, or preparing specimens for research.

Just last week I had to remove one of the world's only pickled adult thylacines from its jar for a researcher. Preserved specimens are reasonably inert - they smell only of alcohol (or whatever preservative they are in) and are normally only as fragile as the animal was alive.

Having in my hands the visceral weight of one of the most iconic stories of extinction, and a personal passion of mine, was pretty thrilling. Thylacines were a kind of Tasmanian marsupial that looked and behaved a lot like a stripy wolf (they are also called Tasmanian tigers). As the Tasmanian sheep farming industry grew in the second half of the 19th century, thylacines were blamed for predating sheep and a bounty was put on their heads. We now know that it was unlikely that they took many sheep, but as a result of the persecution under the bounty system none has been (officially) seen since 1936 (though many people believe they are still out there).

To many ecologically minded folk, the thylacine represents a practically deliberate extinction, resulting from the political pressure of a powerful industry with a destructive agenda. The thylacine was the largest remaining marsupial carnivore and its loss is genuinely tragic.

I have worked with many skeletons and skulls but holding the preserved carcass last week was almost chilling. It is some consolation that, with proper care specimens like this one could potentially last for centuries, so hopefully its story won't be forgotten.